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A Florida fossil dealer who prepared the skeleton of a
tyrannosaur and attempted to sell it at auction, questions
assertions that the fossils were taken illegally from Mongolia,
and says the dispute over its ownership has brought financial
ruin on his family.

"Imagine watching your house burn down with everything you have
in it and knowing you have no insurance," Eric Prokopi, a
commercial fossil dealer based in Gainesville, Fla., writes in a
lengthy statement issued to reporters today (June 22).

The lost sale of the dinosaur has been devastating, he writes.

The process of preparing the skeleton — which federal agents took
into protective custody earlier today — took "thousands of hours
and every penny my wife and I had," Prokopi writes. [ Gallery:
A Dinosaur's Journey ]

The two transformed "chunks of rocks and a bunch of broken bones"
into an 8-feet-tall and 24-feet-long (2.4 by 7.3-meters)
skeleton that went up for public auction through Heritage
Auctions on May 20. Mongolian President Elbegdorj Tsakhia
attempted to stop the sale, saying the dinosaur, a species called
both Tyrannosaurus bataar and Tarbosaurus
bataar, was almost certainly
taken illegally from his country.

Heritage Auctions
sold the fossils for $1.1 million on the condition the courts
approve the sale. Since then, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of New York has claimed the right to seize the fossils
with the intent of returning them to Mongolia. On Friday (June
22), agents took the dinosaur into protective custody until the
case is resolved.

Prokopi, who has not responded to requests for comment from
LiveScience, writes that his statement is intended to clear up
"misconceptions" about the dinosaur fossils.

"I'm just a guy in Gainesville, Florida trying to support my
family, not some international bone smuggler like I have been
portrayed by some in the media," he writes.

Prokopi and his wife Amanda currently operate a business called
Everything Earth with products that include dinosaur fossils.
"You might see some of our projects in museums all over the
world, movies, or even in high end auction catalogs including
Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Butterfield, IM Chait and Heritage," the
company’s website reads.

Numerous paleontologists have supported the Mongolian claim to
the fossils, saying clearly identifiable Tarbosaurus
fossils
have only been found in one rock formation, the Nemegt, in
Mongolia's portion of the Gobi Desert. (Mongolian law makes
vertebrate fossils found within its borders state property.)

Prokopi questions this, saying Tarbosaurus fossils have
been found elsewhere, though he does not elaborate.

"It's certainly possible a new locality with complete specimens
was discovered in another country," he writes. "Just because it
is unknown to professional paleontologists now doesn't mean it is
not possible."

Prokopi writes he purchased the bones without being certain of
where they were collected.

"Other than (from) the diggers, there is no way for anyone to
know for certain when or where the specimen was collected," he
writes.

A Facebook post, dated June 3, suggests Prokopi has knowingly
sold fossils from Mongolia. The post, for a charity auction to
support a Florida montessori school, describes a donation by the
Prokopis as an "80 million year-old Tyrannosaurus rib section
found in Omnogov, Mongolia." [ Image
Gallery: Dinosaur Fossils ]

In fact,
the U.S. Attorney's case hinges on claims Prokopi knew the
fossils were stolen when importing them, and made false
statements on customs forms when importing the fossils — listing
their country of origin as Great Britain rather than Mongolia,
undervaluing them and inaccurately describing them.

Prokopi denies making false claims on the customs forms, and
specifically addresses the charge he misrepresented the
skeleton's value.

According to the federal complaint, the customs forms state the
fossils have a value of $15,000, far below the $950,000 to $1.5
million estimated value listed in Heritage Auctions' catalog.

“When I acquired the
Tyrannosaurus bataar and it was imported to the United
States, the value was declared much lower than the auction value
because, quite simply, it was loose, mostly broken bones and
rocks with embedded bones,” he writes.

He concludes: "All I can do now is hope and pray the American
legal system will uphold American laws and not sacrifice my
rights and freedoms to please a foreign government out for a
political trophy."